Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

And perhaps, then, class was not the whole story.  Students much less academically focused them me did apply (for the football, at least in part ) and were admitted.  But then again, not all made it through.

But this new report on  UW Madison faculty recommending that  the school serve a a more socioeconomically diverse student body from the state resonated deeply with me.

What if?  What if anyone from UW Madison had actively sought out and welcomed kids like me?

Imagine:  Instead of admitting high test-scorers from elsewhere in the implicit assumption that these “better and brighter” students will then take responsibility for the complex social and economic challenges in historically working-class states like Wisconsin, the state would instead commit to admissions criteria that  encouraged the state’s poor and working-class kids themselves to come to Madison to learn about making the state better for all its citizens.

The committee was chaired by the fabulous Sara Goldrick-Rab, who, I believe, is spot-on in her comments in the Inside Higher Ed article:

“When I think of my best students, the ones who are most engaged in class and make the greatest contributions, it is rarely the ones with the highest test scores,” Goldrick-Rab said.

And, she speaks to my memories of the people my homeland, even while many parents there may not have the words to explain to their striving sons and daughters of the opportunities that might await them if  they’d take a shot at admissions at a place like Madison:

Goldrick-Rab said Wisconsin’s population is likely to be receptive to the university’s ideas of fostering a more diverse class. “I think this is a culture that doesn’t like elitists,” she said. “The people of Wisconsin want their state institutions to be as responsive as possible to the people of this state. They realize that the future depends on it.”

Imagine:  Flagship universities combing their states for  smart and ambitious kids to tackle the social and economic complexities of these times, even if their high schools have few AP classes and no one in their hometowns offers expensive SAT prep courses.

I’m glad that  faculty at UW Madison can imagine this very thing.

Filed under: social class ]]> http://educationandclass.com/2013/05/12/socioeconomic-diversity-and-the-university-of-wisconsin/feed/ 3 janevangalen http://educationandclass.com/2013/05/11/social-class-links-05112013/ http://educationandclass.com/2013/05/11/social-class-links-05112013/#comments Sat, 11 May 2013 10:30:14 +0000 janevangalen https://janevangalen.wordpress.com/?p=939 ]]>

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

First is this study  of British academics facing budget cuts and job insecurities adapting “posh” accents in the workplace to show that they “fit in”.  In the author’s words,

“In the current environment, universities are in competition with each other and their unique selling point is often to be ‘elite.’ In turn, academics wanted to portray an image that is also elite”

Even more compelling is the recent BBC survey of class in in the UK, in which the researchers concluded that conventional categories of wealthy, middle, and working class no longer describe the actual dimensions of social stratification.  The survey considers not only wealth and occupation, but  also consumption patterns. On the site, you can take a (decidedly British) class survey to identify your placement as “technical middle”, “emergent service workers” or one of the other five new “classes”.

Two questions come to me as I’m reading:

I’m sure that upwardly mobile academics (and others) in the U.S. learn to “act” more elite than their backgrounds were in reality.  Accent would be less relevant in the US, but what would be some other markers of “elite” membership?

And in this age in which every U.S. politician appeals to a single, broad, amorphous middle class, how would politics change if we could have a more nuanced discussion of class in the US, as this BBC study is sparking in the UK?

Similarly, those attending the for-profits have internalized a sense of where they belong:

For-profit students are similarly hesitant during interviews when I ask them to discuss the milieu in which their educational choices were made. Even when fiercely proud of their education — and many of them are — there is a point of anger for many when asked to explain why a for-profit and not an area traditional college.

There is a sense, often unarticulated until I start prodding, that they made the best choice available to them.

Cottom frames the admissions decisions within deeper structural stratification, and despite the many ads for non-profits showing confident, aspiring young people nodding sagely at their computer screens or books, she finds that decisions to attend for-profits are embedded in pain of living at the bottom rungs of unequal social structures:

But the greatest correspondence between my data and the for-profit sector’s growth, admissions and matriculation processes is with the weakness in the economy. One finding jumps out immediately: more than educational aspiration and personal edification, fear and insecurity motivates the for-profit students I am interviewing.

This is brilliant and important work that I’ll be following.

Of course.   Yes.  Agreed.

But why is the particular model of Reset so appealing?

Reset is generating public support for five “proven” strategies for closing achievement gaps:

• Real time use of data 
• Expectations not excuses (teachers talking about the lack of food, health care, housing, or preschool education are just making “excuses” and don’t believe that poor kids can learn)
• Strong leadership
• Effective Teaching (and they cite the debunked extrapolation of “value added” data that a string of effective teachers adds a year’s growth for children).
• Time on Task (longer school days and years)

The heavy focus on data and the language of “no excuses” comes straight from Teach for America.  In twenty years of putting thousands of unprepared privileged young teachers into classrooms (what?  Yale and Harvard grads are inherently not racist ?) they’ve yet to come close to being able to claim knowing anything about closing achievement gaps.

Which brings us to Solution #2:  Charter Schools, and Reset Education features two super stars as what will work elsewhere if only teachers have higher expectations and submit to stronger leadership.   One school lists $1.3 million in grants and contributions in one year.  If I’m reading their budget right (and it takes 4 clicks to find it), they’re then funded about 25% higher than local public schools.  The other relies on the standard  Super Star Charter school formula: deeply narrowed curriculum,  underpaid teachers working unsustainable hours, drill based instruction.      And they’re proud of it.  

So to be honest, the “Five Strategies that Work” are actually:

• Reliance on private, unidentified funders to provide resources above and beyond what is available to other kids in public schools.
• Teaching strategies for test prep heavily dependent on scripted skill drills but devoid of critical thinking.
• Curriculum narrowed to reading and math, so that low-income and kids of color will be shut out of high-pay STEM careers in spite of their test scores on these narrow tests in elementary school.  No college is looking for kids whose main strength is doing well on standardized tests.  No “information age” career is open to workers who know little of the world beyond their own neighborhoods.
• Teachers working 60-70 hours a week for $40,000 a year.  You know, like those exploited workers in call centers in India.
• Depriving low-income children of any education in history, civics, political empowerment, the arts (“writing funny stories for a break” does not count), or the circumstances of their impoverished communities.

But you’ll find none of that on the Reset Education Website or their lovely promotional video.

Yes, we have to do something.  But while national and local policy makers and wealthy funders are beguiled by the idea that  we can solve racism and classism by testing kids into an equitable future (the classic strategy of believing that if we get school right, deep social problems will solve themselves in the next generation, leaving this generation off the hook), it’s very hard to even get other “somethings” on the table.

And it’s very hard to keep more systemic solutions to the disgraceful high rates of child poverty in the conversation.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.